


In the Quiet of the Moon

by KharmTheRose



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dragons, Gen, One Shot, Short One Shot, Smaugust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KharmTheRose/pseuds/KharmTheRose
Summary: Early in her reign as Neo Queen Serenity, Serena makes a startling discovery in her garden.
Kudos: 7





	In the Quiet of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing dragon descriptions for Smaugust and the prompt for 8/17 is Lunar. 
> 
> It accidentally turned into a fanfic. 
> 
> I haven't watched this in FOREVER, so my grasp on canon is shaky at best. Be warned.

The dragon only came on the full moon.

Serena didn't notice at first. It only appeared in the depths of the garden, where no people appeared. And for so many years after the Silver Crystal's power blessed their new kingdom, she was too busy on the nights of the full moon. She walked among her people, nearly glowing in the reflected light of her power, soothing conflicts and spreading love where she passed.

But years passed, nigh unnoticed within the Silver Crystal's power, except for the creeping exhaustion. The weariness that built up, day by day, despite this being everything she wanted. Her husband, her friends, her people...

So she took to walking in the gardens, to meditate beneath the full moon alone. To recharge. No one thought it odd. There were still so many who still thought of her as the Moon Princess.

That was when she saw it. In the depths of her sanctuary, moonflowers stretching over crystals and offering up their pale blooms to their namesake, the water of the pond like quicksilver in the moonlit night. It cavorted in the water, an elongated pearl at play. Whiskers trailed from its slender serpentine head as it twirled in the water. Four three-toed legs propelled it through the water, strong and supple as a dear. Serena gasped, too struck by beauty to remain silent.

The dragon saw her and fled. Not over the crystals and flowering vines, as she expected, but up. Sinuous as a snake in the air, straight up to the moon, where it disappeared.

Drops of water rained down from its flight, a few alighting her white gown. Serena didn't notice, staring as she did at the moon and the vanished dragon.

#

Serena went back every night for three months before she realized it only came on the full moon. (Rei gave her shit for taking so long to figure that out, because even becoming Neo Queen Serenity didn't stop her best friends from teasing her.) Then, she kept going back on the full moons.

It took a year for the dragon to stop fleeing at her presence. Ten for it let her touch it. She smiled sometimes as the years passed, sitting in the silvery garden watching the dragon watch her back, to think of her adolescent impatience. Was this what her once-and-future daughter had meant when she spoke of her mother's--of Serena's future self's--wisdom? Ten years was little enough within the Silver Cystal's immortality. She was learning to play the long game. To wait and see the fullness of all actions in their course.

So when--as she sat on a crystal with her feet hanging over the water, hand out stretched as she so often had for the last few years--the dragon finally nosed its way into her palm, she didn't start or gasp like she might have in years prior. She smiled, tender and full of peace; an unknowing reflection of Queen Serenity's smile in her past life.

Serena ran her fingers over the petal-soft scales and soaked in the moonlight with the lunar dragon.


End file.
